The moment the Seekers left the Tiger Lily, the first thing Somnia noticed was how many citizens lined the sidewalks, held back by yellow tape and sparsely stationed members of the Galerose Family. Many of the citizens clapped as they ran down the empty brick road toward the Red-Light District, something that – while unexpected – filled Somnia with more pride than she’d been anticipating.

Scents of mud, dew, and metal mixed in the air as they approached the Red-Light District. A few more steps into the familiar part of the city and it’d become clear why. The ground had been littered with the corpses of these ‘Wild Men’. The pointy-eared and pointy-nosed, green-skinned, platinum blonde-haired creatures looked more like goblins than anything masculine, though the black blood they bled did lend itself well to the ‘wild’ part of their name, Somnia felt.

“Archie and I will help out at the wall. You two take care of the stragglers. There’s a group on the way to you all, but they’re weak.”

Somnia and Rui both nodded as Archie and Yugo split off to their destination. At the same time, a group of no more than ten Wild Men slinked from around corners and from the alleyways. Some bared their shark-like teeth at the pair, while others growled and laughed with high-pitched, nasally voices.

Rui kicked off first, coating his right hand in Electricity-Attuned Aura and piercing a Wild Man straight through its stomach. He wasted no time, coating his whole arm in Fire-Attuned Aura and using it like a blade to hack through Wild Men with reckless abandon. When there were three left, he attempted to blast them with a puff of poison, though it faded to mist before it connected – leaving Rui annoyed and the Wild Men confused. Somnia took advantage of the situation, slamming both Wild Men’s heads together and knocking them out cold.

More Wild Men started appearing out of nowhere, like bugs crawling out of barely visible cracks. Just like with that first group, Rui fought them with a sort of calm savagery that hardly complimented the practiced, graceful style Somnia was attempting to master. Seeing it – and how efficient it was – bothered Somnia, more than she’d care to admit. When she was angry or otherwise provoked, she tended to fight in a similar style to great results. Despite this, Somnia understood that relying on each of her opponents to anger her was foolish. That deeper strength existed inside of her, and she’d been training with Yugo for the past week to learn to draw it out at will.

When the battle ended, Rui and Somnia both ended up killing about forty or so Wild Men altogether, though Rui likely killed the majority. Somnia wouldn’t let that thought bother her. Not at all. Instead, she focused on the crowd that’d slowly gathered around them. They were combat-capable locals who were being chaperoned by some Galeroses. The moment they arrived, they started groaning and complaining about not being able to get in on the action. A look with her siblings was enough for Somnia to know they’d been led around on purpose to avoid combat. Some people had hearts bigger than their fists. Despite their disappointment, they clapped for Somnia and Rui’s defeat of the Wild Men – admitting to catching bits of their battle at the very end. They cheered for both of them, but they’d been primarily focused on Rui.

Messages came pouring in on Somnia’s phone, all commenting about the Wild Men in some way or another. The general idea was that the Wild Man threat was over, though, and that the Silent Hand would be reconvening in the tunnels later on. Yugo, meanwhile, messaged the Seekers privately to say that their time in Saikou would be ending in a few days, and to wrap up any affair they still had left.

Rui, of course, hadn’t responded to any of these messages. He’d been too busy chatting up his fans. Somnia was about to call him away, but that was when Rui decided to say something interesting.

“You hacked through those Wild Men like a madman! You’ve gotta teach me how you do it, some time!”

Rui scoffed. “It’s easy, make a Contract with a Curse and sacrifice your two favorite fingers. You’ll be me in no time.”

Somnia blinked, her shock slowly turning to incredulity. The crowd, meanwhile, very quickly began to look like they had business to be attending to and that they needed to get to it right away. The Galeroses had no reaction due to them already knowing about Rui, though they did give him that same annoyed, resigned “Are you serious” look that they’d all inherited from their father.

Noticing the sudden shift, Rui finally spoke up. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m in control of myself, and I’m on your side. Unless I fail to defeat my enemies, or they find me before I’m prepared to kill them. In which case, I probably won’t be.” He paused, graciously registering the fears of the crowd around him. “...So please wish me luck and pray that doesn’t happen to me.”

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

The crowd gave Rui the least enthusiastic cheer Somnia had ever heard in her life.

***

”There’s a reason the first lesson we teach initiates is how to walk! You two have been in the Silent Hand for two hundred years each, and you want me to believe that you’ve suddenly forgotten our most basic lesson?! You’re either stupid, or you’re our enemy!” Shuten Douji scoffed. “You may as well be both if you’re gonna lead our enemies everywhere we go!”

Shuten Douji had been ripping into those two Oni we saw in the Tiger Lily earlier in the day. I wasn’t sure why Shuten Douji needed us all here to witness this – it seemed like the kind of thing you’d do behind closed doors – but Yugo and the others as well as Averyl and a few members of the Galerose Family were here to witness him berate the men that led to the Wild Men invasion. It was all happening in a meeting room in the tunnel network that looked identical to our training hall with a square-shaped table and enough chairs to fit everyone invited to this meeting. In the center, Shuten Douji stood over the two Silent Hand spies he’d been berating, still dressed as a Tiger Lily employee while the Oni were dressed in kimono and hakama. When he finally finished, he had a different Silent Hand Oni deliver a message to Hana saying that the Oni who led them here would be paying for all damages accrued today.

Following that, he briefed all of us on the situation going on with the Wild Men. Apparently, they’d been a thorn in the Oni’s side for the past few weeks, slowly prodding at Oni Village in attempts to take it over just like they had Saikou today. Given how weak they were, Shuten Douji said they had the situation under control. That all changed when suddenly, without warning, the Wild Men started moving with a bit more coordination than normal. It was as Somnia and I witnessed earlier; they’d attack in groups, swarm single fighters, and use their full bodies as weapons rather than punching, kicking, and scratching like other weaker Rogue Species like Jikininki.

In the end, the Galerose Family stated that they’d remain stationed in Saikou as the Honor Guard, while capable, were not capable of protecting themselves. It was their current mission to make that the case while training Hana to be strong enough to protect them as Futakuchi-Onna once had. As for us, Shuten Douji didn’t formally hire us to help out, but did say to be handy in case things suddenly went left. Following that, the room slowly cleared out, leaving the four of us alone in the meeting room. Yugo stood from his seat and stretched, with Archie and I doing the same like a contagious reflex. Somnia remained seated with hands folded over her mouth.

“Well,” Yugo began. “It’s like I said. Wrap your affairs up, because I’m pretty sure things are gonna ‘go left’.”

Truthfully, I didn’t want to leave Saikou. Not while I was still so poor at Poison Manipulation. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t be able to speak to Hana, but I doubted how well I’d be able to learn through lessons given over text.

“I’ll train with Hana one last time tomorrow,” I relented. “Let’s hope it’s a breakthrough.”

“Bring flowers!” Yugo said.

“Why?”

“It’ll make her happy!” Archie answered. “If you leave her with a happy memory, she might be incentivized to train you again whenever you’re in the area.”

“Really, now?” I allowed.

Yugo and Archie shared a mischievous smile, though I didn’t understand why. I wasn’t sure if there was any deeper significance to giving a woman flowers, but Averyl seemed to suggest that it’s quite common for men to do so. I’d asked her why, and she also noted that it made them happy. Given that, I decided I’d ask Averyl to find the right flowers to buy Hana. I had my own motives that, if successful, were worth a thousand times more than a “happy memory”.

“What about you guys?” I asked. “What are you all gonna be doing?”

“I’ve been doing my own training. Culinary training! The chefs over here are amazing!” Archie summoned Lochness in her bipedal form. “And she’s been training with the Galeroses and Honor Guards. Tomorrow’ll be her last lesson, too.”

Lochness hissed regretfully, lowering her head which led to Archie and Yugo petting her softly.

“I have a bit of a project I’ve been working on for the past few days. It’ll be done by tomorrow morning.”

“What about you?” I asked Somnia, who’d still been quiet in her seat. She turned to me and smiled. “I don’t have any plans right now. I think I might stop by the Red-Light District and clean up that mess you made with your… announcement.” She laughed, though I got a sense that she wasn’t amused. “It shouldn’t take long.”

“Announcement?” Archie asked. “What happened?”

“I doubt it’s important,” Yugo interrupted, taking a seat next to Somnia. “I’ll go with you tomorrow, alright? I’m looking forward to hearing all about Rui’s mistake!”